


There Are Two Things I Will Carry in my Pockets at the End

by SpecialTrampAgentOtters (Elsie1285)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, The Truth; IWTB; time-fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 03:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5612569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsie1285/pseuds/SpecialTrampAgentOtters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully introspection in-between 'The Truth' and IWTB. Gap-fill fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Are Two Things I Will Carry in my Pockets at the End

TITLE: There are Two Things I will Carry in my Pockets at the End.

AUTHOR: elsie1285

DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, just let me know and keep my name attached.

SUMMARY:  A little bit of gap-fill Scully introspection over the years.

PAIRING: MSR

RATING: G

SPOILERS: Post Truth-Pre IWTB

TIMELINE: Post-The Truth through to start of  IWTB

DISCLAIMER:  They aren't mine.  I wish they were.  They are the 

property of Chris Carter and 1013 productions.  'Nuff said.  Title

taken from the gorgeous song 'Oh My Darling' by Basia Bulat

FEEDBACK: Please - it feeds the beast.  

 

"There are two things I will carry in my pockets at the end

oh, my darling,

you are one of them

the way you look when you have a story to begin,

oh, my darling,

that's the other half"

 

 

There Are Two Things I Will Carry in my Pockets at the End

 

 

Daisies  June 2002

 

Crowds and crowds of daisies, grouped, pushing and turning their heads

to the sun, drinking in the last rays as the early evening steals its

way into the duck egg sky.  They are tall daisies, not the dwarf ones

your sister used to make into chains for you when you were small.

When you were innocent.  They are tall, proud, look-at-me daisies.

Daisies to make you tall and proud when you look at them.  Daisies to

make you pretend.

 

You turn to him, your voice unusually reverent, and say "I want to

pick huge handfuls of them.  Gather them in armfuls."  You wonder if

your lips even moved in the hushed stillness of the car.

 

He looks at you, quizzical but humouring you.  He does that a lot at

the moment.

 

"Why don't you?"  You don't know if it is him speaking, or the devil

on your shoulder, but you drink in the suggestion anyway, reflecting

on it, inspecting the prism of its possibilities.

 

"Because they wouldn't be whole anymore."  He nods once and turns back

to the road.  You wonder if you will be ever whole again.  People

collected a part of you, of him, taken into their arms, probably with

more reverence than you would show your precious daisies, and you no

longer feel whole.  Is that the same?

 

You imagine the feel of the daisy petal against your finger, smooth.

Soft like the downy mass of newborn hair you imagine you feel as you

drift to sleep in another ghost of a motel room.

 

 

 

Coffee  February 2003

 

Island-like, it sits in the middle of your pillow when you return from

mailing yet another cleverly coded message to your mother, who expects

every day to hear bad news, reassuring her that you are in fact still

surviving, battling through each day.  Of course you don't go by your

name anymore, and you're not even sure who that long-lost woman is

now, but you're sure the message gets through nevertheless.

 

Shining, it glints - treasure, gold and silver - in the light of the

dirty bedside lamp.  You can hear the shower running in the tiny

bathroom, accounting for the flickering of the main light in the

room.  You close your eyes for a moment, shutting the intrusive

brightness off at the switch, picturing the rivulets of water making

their way down his strong back, taught and knotted with ever-present

anxiety.

 

A packet of coffee beans; the plastic-coating unable to mask the Cuban-

rich scent as you lift it, delicately, from the perpetually scratchy

pillowcase.

 

After years of reheated caffeine from the bullpen cafeteria, and now

months of truck stop sludge, the smell is almost too much, assailing

your nostrils and making you close your eyes in heady anticipation.

 

He places his hands on your shoulders, slippery and cooling in the

barren room.  You jump slightly and he chuckles in your ear, quiet and

deeply masculine.  "Boo".

 

"Try that again and I'll hurt you like that beast woman." You are

unsure of why your voice is so breathy.  You wonder if it might be a

residual response to the light-headed feeling the coffee beans gave

you but you're not convinced.

 

Later, as you come back to your senses to find yourself on the lumpy

motel mattress, his unkempt hair spilling over your chest as he

sleeps, you flex your fingers, finding you have been gripping the

packet of beans throughout.  A lifeline.  Magic beans.  You wouldn't

sell these for a cow, or a golden harp.

 

He chuckles again, the caramel sound trickling through your body in

the chilly, unfeeling room.  You turn your head to him, wondering if

you have spoken aloud, thinking him asleep still.  He has turned to

look up at you through heavily lidded, sleep-laden eyes.

 

"When I can, the first place I will take you will be a coffee shop, on

a Sunday morning, and we'll read the papers and you'll sprinkle

cinnamon onto the top of your latte.  Full fat."  It is a promise,

drowsily uttered but more sincere than a wedding vow and he knots his

fingers through your hair, chestnut now, and long, splayed on the

pillow.

 

You drop a kiss on his head and are rewarded with a soft snore, quiet

in the still night.  And for a while, you forget that you are running

to stand still.

 

 

 

Phonecalls  March 2003

 

There is a phone buried at the bottom of your bag, under an untouched

sky blue blanket from a long lost crib, the towel reserved for dying

your hair and his purple Georgetown running shirt.  He doesn't run and

you're sure that if he ever had to be involved in another chase he'd

wind up red-faced, sweating and gasping for breath, despite the

workout he gives himself everyday.  But you keep it anyway, ensconced

in it the nights that it is cold and you are sitting up, reading while

he sleeps soundly beside you.  Insomnia doesn't seem to plague him

like it used to.  Now it is you who survives on minimal sleep and tar-

black coffee from the machine in the reception.

 

Sometimes you make him wear the shirt as he pads round the motel

room.  Iowa, Nevada, Georgia.  It doesn't matter where you are, they

are all the same; mini-fridge, cable TV (he insists), coarse brown

comforter, mass-produced paintings and a leaky tap somewhere in the

bathroom.   He wears it for the afternoon as he trawls the copy of the

Midnight Inquisitor you have picked up at the store.  After a while he

lifts his eyes to you, cocking his head to one side and locking his

gaze with yours.

 

"Long enough Ma'am?"

 

You crawl closer to him on the bed, dragging a heavy medical journal

behind you.  Your hair, blonde now and scrabbled into a messy bun at

the nape of your neck, comes loose and falls down to touch his ring

finger, curling a wedding band around it as you lean in to smell the

faded material against his chest.  You inhale, taking in the bitter

tang of sweat and the slight autumnal spiciness of his soap, and nod.

 

The shirt is returned to you and put back in the bag, ready for those

nights when you need to be surrounded by him.  The phone is still

beneath it, silent and austere for just under a year.  The sim card in

the phone is set to receive calls only, and only one person has the

number registered to Laura Petrie.  The one person as silently austere

as the phone itself.

 

The Sunday afternoon (at least you think it is Sunday) when the phone

rings, he is in the shower.  You vaguely hear something crash to the

floor of the cramped tub and find that you are rooted to the floor,

eyes trained on the bag as all the sounds in the room seem to mute to

further exaggerate the volume of the chirping tone.

 

You are still staring at the open closet door when he comes out of the

bathroom, hair standing on end, eyes deer-in-the-headlights wide.  He

hurriedly shoves the bag towards you as he wraps a towel around his

waist.  You know that he cannot answer the call, and yet you

desperately wish he could.

 

Trembling, you pick up the cell and press the retrieve call button.

 

Dimly, you are aware that your ex-boss is on the other end of the

line, gruff and masculine and overpowering as always.  He is brief and

you manage to utter a few words in response to his swiftly issued

message, including a whispered "Thank you" before hanging up the

phone.  You turn to face your partner, taking in his expectant face as

the blood roars in your ears.

 

"They've stopped looking for me."

 

It is no more than a whisper and you shock yourself, looking down as

if surprised that those words have tumbled out of your mouth.  You're

not sure they've fallen out in the right order and wonder if you

didn't mishear the caller, if your mind had somehow registered the

wrong message.  "I can go back into society he says."

 

He looks back at you and you start to shake.  His silence is deafening

and you wish he would say something.  Anything.  You find yourself

lowering your gaze again, filling the silence, babbling to cover his

incredulous lack of response.

 

"They're dropping the charges against me and...and the others involved

in your rescue.  He says they'll turn a blind eye to me re-entering my

life..."  You trail off as that word hangs in the air between you.

Life.  He coughs once and you raise your head, meeting his eyes

again.  "He says they'll still want you, but that they're not actively

looking anymore".  You can't read his expression and wish there was

something you could say that would make this fair.  Make this an

acceptable way to exist.

 

He moves and you let out a breath you didn't realise you had been

holding.  He goes to say something and then rethinks.  Instead, he

moves towards you and gathers you into his arms, pulling you down so

you are half perched on the side of the bed.

 

He rests his forehead on the crown of your head, eyelashes blinking

soft against the path where your roots are coming through again.

Strawberry blonde as you get older, the flaming red of your youth

replaced by fiery auburn in your early 30s, and now a lighter, more

indecisive colour coming through.

 

"You can go back to red now."  His mumbled statement is quiet against

your hair and you nearly reply.  You stop, sensing his acceptance.

The logistics will work themselves out.

 

It's one step forward.

 

 

 

Bookstores  December 2003

 

You finger the cellophane wrapping on the front of the calendar.

Glass-smooth against your palm, it ripples as you move your hand over

it, soothing it as a mother sooths a child's back as it slumbers.

Kittens gambolling after wool.  You idly wonder who buys this tat.

You look at the finger print you have left on the surface of the

wrapping.  You are tempted to leave your mark on everything in this

store.  You can now, free to leave as much work for dusters and

polishers at the end of the day as you desire.

 

A stab of guilt jabs your heart, sharp.  You think of him, left

behind, holed up in his small room, becoming more mad-professor like

each day.  He has no fingerprints outside of those four walls, has no

identity or personality outside of your unremarkable house.  Home, you

correct yourself, it is a home now.

 

2004.  The numerals on the calendar shout at you as you take them in.

18 months since you left your first life behind.  It doesn't sound

like much when you say it like that.  You try it on your tongue, the

words leaving in a rushed whisper.

 

"18 months."  It is nothing.  Try again. How about 78 weeks, give or

take a few days?  Better, but still not enough to make this anvil in

your chest seem worth carrying around.

 

"547 days."  There it is, a testament to the journey that has seemed

to last a lifetime.  It doesn't erase anything.  It doesn't make it

better.  But 547 days is a long time to be carrying around these

embers of fiery fear.

 

Dates didn't really matter when you were moving.  You told the season

from the sun and the weather, the occasional newspaper.  You judged

the time of year from the sky and the color of the fields.  Bright

with sunflowers; Summer.  Empty and ploughed; Autumn.  The month

didn't matter, as long as you survived through another season without

detection.  For so long only one date mattered, one time to aim for.

Now...  Now you are static, settled, and suddenly time has taken on its

importance, rearing its ugly head to mock you as you go through your

daily life.  Home, hospital, dinner, bed.   The stasis is constant,

comforting.  For you at least.

 

You move towards the back of the shop, trailing slightly-clammy

fingers along the shelves as you go, reveling in the delight of your

identity.

 

Christmas shopping.  Two words to strike fear into the heart of any

sane person.  If you had your way you'd do it all online, but you

don't want to risk giving your address out to the world and his wife.

He has his P.O. Box in Richmond, something entirely unlinked to you,

and nothing to tie the two of you together.  You imagine your

Christmas present will come via this P.O. Box, muddled in with local

newspapers from around Central America and letters to M.F. Luder and

George Hale.

 

Your list is short this year, and yet miles longer than it was the

previous holiday season.  Your Mother, Brothers, ex-boss and him.

Short.  Methodical.  So very you, and not you all at once.  One name

missing.  One name you cannot utter but in the stillness of the night.

 

Thanksgiving this year was small and sullen.  Despite your attempts at

cheer, he was deep in his solitude, shutting himself away, first in

his room of research and then later in the bedroom at the top of the

ramshackle house you now called home.  When your patience had finally

snapped, you followed him upstairs to find him fingering the baby-blue

blanket, trapped in the top of the closet until then.  You touched the

top of his head, always surprised to see the slight graying of the

hair around his ears.

 

"What is there to be thankful for?"  His whisper was the first

admittance you'd had of his occasional desolation.  He knows this is

for the best, that you have no other choice if you are to continue

together, and that there is no alternative to that idea, despite his

attempts at convincing you otherwise.

 

You didn't speak, settling for gesturing around the room before

bringing his hand to your heart.  Us.  The unspoken word resonated

around you and he nodded once, before going quietly and thoroughly to

pieces in your arms.

 

All gifts are done but his.  You finger the texts.  Milton,

Shakespeare, Keats.  Last year you received a dog eared copy of 'The

Handmaid's Tale'.  You have no idea where he got it, or why that book

of all the other books he knows you love.  Maybe a sign not to give

up?  Maybe a reminder that life isn't too bad relatively?  Who'd moan

about living out of motel rooms if they were forced to live the lives

of the women of Gilead?  You don't know, you didn't ask.  His familiar

scrawl on the inside of the dust jacket read simply "December 25.

2002.  Still my touchstone."

 

Dickens, Twain, Bronte.  Your mother once referred to him as a modern

day Heathcliffe, stormy and obsessive and oh so very much in love.

You mocked her then, viewing her whimsy as trite and predictable.

Now, you often miss that tempestuousness, wish that description could

still stand in its entirety.

 

Shelley, DuMaurier.  Keep moving.

 

Your eyes fall on Browning, lodged between his adoration, Elizabeth

Barrett, and Robert Burns.  Paracelsus.  You pick it up, the brown

cover reflecting in the harsh light of the bookstore, bright against

the December dusk.  You are once again surrounded by fields that

stretch for miles, starting yet another new life.  You hope he feels

it too.

 

Once home you open the front cover and scrawl just the date and your

name.  Your real name.

 

 

 

Valentines  June 2005

 

Every so often you let him drive.  Not far, and only if he hasn't had

a shave in while.  You wear a hat or a scarf on your head to mask your

hair and the two of you leave the fortress together, bound as one

physically, for once.  You may be free but, until you hear otherwise,

he is a wanted man, and your trips in tandem are infrequent and quiet,

drawing as little unwanted attention as possible.

 

Today he won't tell you where you are heading as you leave in the

warmth of the June morning, bathed in sunlight as you cross from the

porch to the passenger side of the car.  Your light cotton skirt

rustles against your bare knees as you walk and, absently, you wish

you had a job outside to help warm up the color of your skin.  You

have spent too many years around death to appreciate the hue of snow

white tone and long for the constant lust for life that seems to light

his body from inside.

 

He starts the car as you wander down to open the gate, flip-flops

loose on your feet and strands escaping the band tying your hair

back.  You look back to see what is taking so long; you are

uncomfortable having both of you out in the open like this.  He leaves

the house for a second time, checking the front door as he jogs to the

car.  He is carrying your broad sunhat, with the chocolate ribbon

around the dome, and you watch him toss it into the back seat, along

with the picnic blanket he stowed in there the first time you

attempted to leave.  Intriguing.

 

You secure the gate after the vehicle, watching him flex his muscles

behind the wheel of the car.  You cannot imagine how these outings

feel to him.  Snippets of the real world now and then.  His only real

anchor to reality are the stories he watches on CNN at night, and the

reports you bring back to him.

 

The road stretches ahead of you and you start to doze, your head

coming to rest between the seat and the window.  In that state of half-

sleep you can almost kid yourself that you are back on the road.  You

never got out of the car and 6 years haven't passed since you had this

exact conversation in the car with him, almost begging for this

normalcy, this routine way of life.

 

You jerk your head upright as he serves to avoid a possum in the road.

 

"Lunch?" He flashes you that mischievous grin.  You realise he is

revelling in this.

 

You glance at the clock and register that you have been driving for

nigh on 2 hours now.

 

"Hey, I thought we weren't going far?"  The panic tinges the edge of

your voice and you imagine it is purple against the cool blue of the

car's calming atmosphere.  He flashes you a brief sideways look,

possibly tinged with his own color of slight resentment.

 

"We're not."  And he raises a finger to point at a sign as you enter a

town so typically American you have to laugh.  Harpers Ferry Town,

WV.  You drive through the town, stopping only for him to replenish

supplies of sunflower seeds and ice tea, and for you to pick up subs

for the two of you.

 

"No bee pollen?"  He asks.  You flash him a grin.

 

"No, they were all out.  Had to make do with these instead."  You

waggle the pack of glazed doughnuts at him and he grins back, memories

of years of Police Stations in towns identical to this, caught between

hating and loving the journey and the chase.

 

You drive further out of town, coming to rest on the banks of the

river.  There are hikers on the trail and children catching

butterflies in nets and entrapping them in jam jars covered in

tinfoil, popping the lids with holes to help them breathe.  You wonder

idly if you work as his own private set of gills, helping him breathe

when he is trapped in your tiny, unremarkable home.  He settles the

two of you at a bench to eat your picnic and he caresses your knee

with his spare hand.  You peer up at him from under the brim of the

over-sized hat; your only nod to the fashion magazines so often left

in the Doctor's lounge at work.  He swallows the last bite of his

meatball sub and swipes at a smudge of low fat mayo on your chin,

throwing you back to 1994 in a rib house when every touch sent a

frisson through your spine.  You wonder if that effect will ever

lessen.  You assume not, after 12 years together so far.  You take

care not to lower your eyes shyly this time, but hold his gaze.

 

He moves to sit on your side of the bench so that the two of you are

gazing out over the water, geese reflected in the glass of the

surface.  His arm snakes round your shoulder and comes to rest, toying

with a lock of your hair.

 

"Happy Valentines Doc"

 

You have the sense not to point out that it is June rather than

February, content to accept that this man will never do things by the

book.

 

 

 

Non-Fat Tofutti Rice Dreamsicles  September 2005

 

Despite the fact that it is September, your clothes are sticking to

you as you walk down the halls of Our Lady of Sorrows.  You ponder the

fact that had Mary been living in heat anywhere near that which you

are experiencing today, there would be no wonder she was sorry.

 

Blasphemous thoughts.  And in a hospital too.

 

The devil on your shoulder is back, chiding you, and you're not

surprised to see he has your lover's form.  Of course your partner

would be the devil on your shoulder.  You chuckle to yourself as you

unlock the door to the white Ford parked in your physician's parking

spot and slide in, marvelling, not for the first time, that this car

has remained so unmarred in the 2 years since you bought it.

 

Note to self:  Being the sole driver of a car and retiring from the

business of being at the heart of a global conspiracy may have its

perks.

 

You turn up towards the drive of the house, unlocking the gate,

entering your own private Alcatraz.  He has locks, wire and chains all

over the gate, and yet nothing but an ordinary Yale lock on the door.

His long-deceased underworld friends would be disappointed in him.

 

Silence greets you as you open the door to his lair.  Unsurprising;

there is only so much noise one man can make while holed up in a

cavern of clippings and articles.  This time is different though.  You

are met only with the rustle of papers, the perpetual ticking of the

clock and, as you turn to exit the room again, the cold, slightly

accusatory gaze of his sister; pinned up and frozen immortal, aged 8,

on the back of the door.

 

Padding out into the living area you take stock.  Two and half years

after being given yet another chance at life, and you have a room full

of second hand furniture and a hairy life partner to show for it.

You're not sure you could be more content right now.

 

But it is still too quiet.

 

You hunt high and low, a modern-day Grand Old Duke of York, and still

come up empty-handed.  Just as you panic, noting the lack of struggle,

lack of bloodstains on the carpet, echoing the shadow of your sister's

last fight in a now-distant apartment block in Georgetown, you hear

the sound of the gate.

 

Fleeing to the window you watch him stroll up the path, his Stonehenge

Rocks cap pulled low over his eyes and his forearms bronze in the

September heat.  Despite his captivity, his olive skin never seems to

lose its sun-kissed shimmer.  He is gingerly carrying a paper bag with

suspicious liquid stains on the side and a corner missing from the

top, ripped through with moisture.

 

You open the door just as he reaches for the handle and he shifts,

deftly side-stepping your otherwise well-aimed attack on his chest.

He laughs, full and belly-shaking and you feel a trickle of desire

make its way through your stomach, settling just south.

 

He reaches into the bag and pulls out a near-perfectly preserved ice-

cream cone.

 

"Did you bring enough to share with the rest of the class?" You

enquire, head cocked to one side as you watch his tongue slide over

the top of the froth of off-white cream.

 

"Ain't no non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicle..." he murmurs the words as he

draws the other cone from the bag, dropping the stained packaging to

the floor.  "You still want some?"  He touches the top of the cone to

the tip of your nose and you stand perfectly still, letting him lap it

off.

 

When your senses register normalcy again you are lying on your back on

the rug by the fireplace, a slightly dairy-sticky partner hovering

over you, licking ice cream residue off your chin; a Cheshire cat grin

on his perfect lips.

 

Later you rescue the paper-napkin residing in the bag still on the

porch, slightly sticky with the remains of your late summer treat.

 

 

 

Birthdays  May 2006

 

You don't usually linger on birthdays anymore.  Cards go out to the

requisite people and you head up to Washington by yourself each year

to visit your mother.  He sends his best wishes but he knows as well

as you that even if it was safe, the matriarchal judgement of your

mother is more than your fragile relationship can bear after months of

his being cooped up.  He doesn't resent you, rather the situation.

Yet every time your respective tensions come to a head your irrational

side, the side that used to terrify new med students and office

personnel who moved too slowly in another hospital, during another

vigil, feels that he is digging at you, niggling to get a reaction.

Who can blame him?

 

But this year's birthdays are different.  This year he would be five.

 

Your son.

 

Two words that say so much, and yet so little.  You can feel downy

auburn hair beneath your fingers still, see pouting lower lips and

wide Sargasso eyes framed with lush black lashes.  You raise the

blanket to your lips and think you can smell him still, caught in the

gaps between the fibres.  You know it is fanciful, hungry for that

lost contact, but you can't stop.  It is like a drug as May

approaches.

 

His father, your lover, is feeling it too.  You can feel his fingers

itching in his sleep, aching to toss a baseball to his son, or shoot

hoops out back of this unremarkable house.

 

You both spend the month in a stupor, imagining a boy, sturdy on his

legs and a back fine and proud.  When he grows he will be broad across

the shoulders, like his Father, tall but with your strength and slight

stockiness.  You cannot bring yourself to say the word "Dad".  It is

too familiar, for a boy who is anything but familiar to you.  You

still dream of him as yours though.

 

On the 20th you cannot find the energy to rise in the morning, and

call in sick.  You can hear the pity in the voice of the receptionist,

recognise her assumption that you have no one at home in that lonely

house to look after you when you are ill.  You let them continue with

that belief.  It is easier this way.

 

When you drag yourself out of the mass of comforters, drawing back the

heavily flowered drapes, you can see him out the back of the house,

dribbling the ball back and forth.  He wears the Georgetown shirt,

worn and greying now, and still your favourite item of his clothing.

You think back to a younger, more innocent man and sigh.  He seems to

hear you and directs the look, the one reserved solely for you, at the

pane of the window.  You know that the positioning of the sun means

that he cannot see you, that the reflection of the late afternoon

light will cause nothing but glare, but he knows you're there and that

you need him.

 

What hasn't occurred to you before now is that he needs you today too.

 

You pad down the stairs as he enters from the back of the house,

trekking in dirt and shucking off the shirt as you meet him in the

kitchen.  There is a lone brownie in the middle of the table on one of

the many odd and mismatched plates.  A long time ago the dark woods of

the house, so reminiscent of his seemingly ever-dark apartment, and

the hodge-podge nature of their collection of possessions, would have

killed you.  You remember, when you moved here, longing for the smooth

lines and muted magnolia of your apartment in Georgetown, with its

matching forest green plates and mocha mugs.  Now you cannot imagine

being elsewhere and wonder where that perfectionist in you has gone.

 

He draws out a lone candle and places it in the middle of the brownie,

avoiding your eyes as they pool with unshed tears, and lights the wick

reverently.  He gathers you into his arms and holds you into his chest

and whispers nothings into your ear.  Together, you watch the flame

burn through the wax and feel your heart break with every candy stripe

of blue that disappears, succumbing to the white heat of the fire

above it.  You only catch one phrase before he leads you out of the

room and into the quiet sunlight behind the house.

 

"We celebrate."

 

 

 

Curtains  August 2006

 

He stirs in the night to find you standing by the window.  You can

feel him blinking blearily in the milky light of the moon outside the

slightly fogged pane, fancy you can hear his eyelashes flutter against

his cheeks as his eyes adjust to the sudden wakefulness.

 

"I hate these curtains"

 

He chuffs, one hand over his heart and the other resting above his

head.  You don't need to turn to know his positioning, it is ingrained

on your brain, as familiar as the smell of milk powder that assaults

your senses in the middle of the night, or at the counter in the

store.

 

You finger the patterned fabric guarding the edges of the room.  The

fabric is coarse, shot with frayed and faded silk flowers, sick and

wan in the pre-dawn lightening of the sky.  It is old, smelling of

other people, other histories, and other loves and you let it fall,

reminded of softer cotton, topaz and knobbled with washing, smelling

of lotion and talcum powder.

 

He watches you, mimicking your breathing as you savour the memory for

a fraction of minute.  He watches you as you turn from the glass, your

shadow bouncing from cowering by the door to towering above the

dresser, tall and proud, like your daisies from so very long ago.  He

watches you as you unlatch the door and pad across the hall to the

stairs.  And you imagine he watches you well out of his sight as you

steal away from your shared pain.

 

When you come home from work the next day there are fresh curtains,

buttercup yellow and bright as childlike eyes of wonder, at the window

and a vase of your daisies on the sill.

 

He sighs as you settle behind him.  All he needs is the touch of your

lips at his temple.

 

 

 

Boxes - December 2007

 

One thing you have learnt from all your years with this man is that he

is not to be trusted when quiet.  He is plotting something, carrying

out some devious plan, or is just plain in trouble.

 

Tonight it is deviousness.  You can feel it in your toes.  He is

hidden somewhere in the house when you get home from work and there

isn't a sound.  The TV is shut off, the door to his make-shift

basement stands open, revealing only newspapers and a glinting Buddha

winking from the desk.  You suppress the childish urge to stick your

tongue out at it as you make your way to the stairs.

 

He is seated on the floor by the fish tank, the spaceship bobbing

behind his head, providing a metronome to his obviously deep

thinking.  In front of him is a box, one that has been on the top

shelf of the closet since you moved in, and one that requires you to

stand on the stool from in front of the dresser every time you want

access to it.  It is the box on which the baby blanket (now ensconced

on the end of your bed, a reminder of your son and his short time with

you) used to sit, blocking wandering eyes and hands from prying into

it.

 

You don't see him as prying.

 

He is turning each item over in his hands and you can see him

cataloguing, referencing, piecing together the puzzle of each memory.

 

A head of a daisy, its petals paper thin and wispy.  He lifts it to

his nose and breathes in the long gone sent of a bright June day, 4

years ago.  Windows down and rolling America along side the car.

 

The silver wrapper of a Cuban Coffee Company packet, tarnished and

crumpled with age and your touch every now and then.  He doesn't need

to lift this to his nose to take in the rich scent.  You see his eyes

flutter closed, the memory of this promise weighing heavily on this

brain.

 

"Don't worry.  I know you'll take me."  Your whisper startles him and

he looks up, sheepish.  You cross the room to him and together you

talk through each piece of memorabilia of your new life, your life

after 2002.

 

A sim card, handing you back your life, perhaps rescuing both of

you.   A receipt for a book, talking of love and life.  A chocolate

ribbon, pulled from a wide brimmed hat after a slow burning

Valentines.  A paper napkin, still smeared with sweet smelling

dessert.  A molten candle, nothing but a puddle of wax in a near

perfect circle.  A swatch of ugly curtain, pinned back to back with a

tiny corner of yellow, snipped from the very top, by the pole.

 

And pictures.  Always pictures.  But two that don't belong in this box

anymore.  You draw them out and stand them side by side on the sill,

framing the now ever-present daisies.  You two, standing over a case

file somewhere in the backend of Idaho, FBI printed in Yellow and

stark against the black of your regulation Kevlar.  And your son.

Cooing up from a crib decorated with snowflakes.

 

"Smiling" His statement is hushed against the growing peace in the

room.  You don't know if he means you or the picture.  You no longer

care.

 

 

 

Visitors  January 2008

 

You turn away from the young family, hoping your eyes don't betray the

desolation you feel.  "We're going to run more tests" is the coward's

way out.  Fobbing them off with false hope you have no right to

provide.  You force yourself to watch their faces fall, make yourself

suffer alongside them because that's what you deserve for your lie of

omission.

 

You feel rather than hear the presence behind you as you offer

wordless apologies, to both your patient and your God.  You turn as

the tall man, almost regal and resplendent in his tailored suit and

black trench, opens his mouth to speak.  You don't need his

introduction, you know where he's from and your number is up.  You

flash to your partner, the man you love, and wonder what you can say

to deflect their interest for an hour, a day, so he can flee.  You do

not expect the message this courier brings.  A message of peace, of

retribution.

 

"Dana Scully?  I'm looking for Fox Mulder."

 

Finis

 

 

 

"and I will never lose them,

no i'll never never show them like a prize

I will keep them out of sight

and I will never give them up to any ceiling

promise or a lie,

they are mine until I die, until I die"

 


End file.
